


Desire

by siggen1



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-19 20:02:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siggen1/pseuds/siggen1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>True love's course never does run smooth. It's a cliché because it's true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> \- Set following series 3. No explicit spoilers, but assumes knowledge of all three series (though it disregards many of the Chandler-dating-related plot points in series 3).  
> \- I've been obsessing over Whitechapel for a while now, and have about fifteen fics in my WiP folder. Whitechapel is a show with a somewhat limited canon, so in my meanderings I've constructed some head canon that informs the way I write these characters, an overview of which can be found here: http://siggen1.livejournal.com/201928.html.  
> \- I feel I should point out that I am not, by this story, passing any sort of judgment on relationships between asexuals and sexuals. None at all. I’m absolutely certain that they can work very well indeed.

“Kent, can I see you for a moment?”  
  
Emerson frowned, but got up from his desk and followed the Skip out of the incident room, up the stairs, through the main foyer and out in the carpark.  
  
“Listen, son,” the Skip said, stopping and turning to face Kent, “your personal life is none of my business, and I don’t want it for my business either, but you need to tone it down.”  
  
“What do you mean, Skip?” He had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what Miles meant. He was starting to feel sick.  
  
“You know what I mean, Kent. You’re embarrassing yourself. And the boss.”  
  
Emerson felt his face drain of colour. “The boss knows?”  
  
Miles looked at him in pity. “He’d have to be blind not to.” After a moment's thought, he conceded: “But with antennaes like his, I wouldn’t be half surprised if he hadn’t noticed. If he does know, he’s being gracious about it and pretending not to. If he doesn’t know, you ought to knock it off before he does notice.”  
  
Emerson nodded dumbly, not trusting himself not to throw up if he tried to speak, and Miles nodded and headed back inside. He leant back against the wall, trying to breathe slowly. He knew he hadn’t been doing a stellar job of hiding his feelings for DI Chandler, but he honestly hadn’t thought the Skip had noticed. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He was well and truly fucked now.  
  
\---  
  
It was late. Kent sat in his chair, regarding the evidence board and trying to make sense of their meagre few leads, sort them in his head before the evidence from the most recent murder, called in just before midnight, was pinned up in the morning. He rubbed his eyes and sunk further down in the chair. He could feel himself starting to doze off comfortably, but couldn't quite build up the wherewithal to care.  
  
He wasn't sure how long he'd been sleeping, but he woke with a start when the lights were switched on in the incident room. When had Mansell left? And why the fuck hadn’t he woken Emerson when he did? The tosser had just turned out the light and gone. Emerson was about to get up, get his phone and text obscenities to Mansell, when he realized that whoever turned the lights on was carrying on a conversation through the room.  
  
“How do you mean ‘different’?” That was Miles.  
  
“I don’t know." That was the boss. They must have come back after surveying the new crime scene.    
  
"I can’t quite put my finger on it, just... Different. Less friendly, keen to avoid eye contact. Curt.” Chandler paused, but when no answer was forthcoming, he was clearly irritated. “Come on, Miles, you must have noticed!”  
  
Kent knew he should alert them that he was there, but their conversation intrigued him. He slid down in his chair as far as he could to avoid detection, as the two men walked to Chandler’s office, without closing the door.  
  
“I have,” Miles finally said. “I’m the reason. I asked him to tone it down, and he has.”  
  
“You asked him... Tone down what?”  
  
“He’s in love with you, sir.” Emerson felt a hot blush on his cheeks. Shit!  
  
“What?”  
  
“He was milling about making doe eyes at you, and he was getting too obvious for his own good. I asked him to be more discreet.”  
  
“Oh God.”  
  
“You really didn’t know?” Miles’ tone was incredulous.  
  
"I thought he looked up to me, that I was his role model."  
  
"I'm sure you are, but he's also in love with you."  
  
“I... I had no idea.” Chandler sounded crestfallen. “Shit!” The springs in the rolling chair creaked when he sat down, and Emerson could swear he heard the faint sound of the lid coming off the jar of tiger balm. The two officers sat in silence for several minutes.  
  
“He’s not someone you’d have to accomodate, you know,” Miles said, finally, and Emerson could tell from his voice that he was smiling.  
  
“I keep telling you, I’m not gay,” Chandler said, irritated now.  
  
“And I keep not believing you. I wonder why."  
  
"It's not as simple as that, Miles."  
  
"What does that mean?"  
  
"I'm not gay. Or straight. I'm..."  
  
"Both," Miles suggested.  
  
"Neither," Chandler finished.  
  
“Neither?”  
  
“I’m honestly not that interested in that sort of thing.”  
  
“You’re...asexual?”  
  
“More or less,” Chandler replied hesitantly, sounding puzzled. Kent could empathise, he was pretty surprised to hear that word as part of the Skip’s vocabulary.  
  
“Is that why you’re alone?”  
  
Silence. When Miles continued, his voice was soft.  
  
“You don’t have to be, you know.”  
  
“My experience says otherwise. What makes you think Kent would even feel the same way if he knew what I am?'  
  
"He's head over heels." Miles sounded confident.  
  
"He deserves better than me."  
  
"He doesn't want anyone better."  
  
"He's young, he doesn't know what he wants."  
  
"More mature than some blokes I know twice his age."  
  
"Why do you care so much?" Chandler was exasperated now.  
  
"Because if it was out of the question, you would have ended this conversation long before now. You fancy him, and he fancies you."  
  
"No. I like him. I don't fancy him, which is part of the problem. Celibacy is too much to ask of a person. It... ends badly.”  
  
"Not always."  
  
Chandler sighed. "It's 2.30 a.m. I'm going home, and so are you."  
  
Emerson sat completely still while the Skip got his coat and left, until Chandler had switched the lights off and the door fell shut behind him. His head was spinning with all of this new information. Once he was certain he was alone, he turned his chair, switched on his desk lamp and took out his note book. He needed a plan.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant for this to come 'round quicker, but suddenly, it was way more fun to write some later chapters than it was navigating this one. Anyway. Here it is! I did also mean for it to be a bit longer, but it came to a natural stopping-point, and if I was to carry on until the next one, this chapter probably wouldn't be forthcoming until the New Year. (So, yeah, the next chapter might be a ways off. Sorry.)
> 
> (Yes, I'm a helpless Avengers-fan, spot the easter eggs in this and coming chapters if you can be arsed.)

Emerson’s first instinct was to seek Chandler out immediately, ideally the next morning, but this was too important to leave up to his instincts. They’d been off more than once before. (See: Morgan Lamb, witness-slash-victim, whose status in the case and subsequent murder had driven a solid wedge between him and the boss. He'd spent the better part of a year chipping away at that wedge, working his arse off just to claw his way back up to square one, and he was still working on getting back that level of trust they’d once had.) What he needed, was a plan. 

He made himself wait a week, for the following Friday. He spent the week doing research and planning his angle. If he meant for this to work, he needed to be certain of what he was doing. A week after the night he still referred to in capital letters in his mind, he waited for the shift to end, dawdling at his desk while Mansell, Riley and their colleagues filed out one after another. At 5:15, he and Miles were the only ones left. 

“Right, I’m off,” said the Skip, glancing towards Chandler’s office. “You make sure he doesn’t stay here all night, yeah?”

Kent nodded, and tried to hide his smile. This was part of their Friday ritual, and it hadn’t changed in the weeks after Miles admonishd Kent to keep his feelings for the boss to himself. Once the Skip left and Kent was alone in the incident room, he took two deep breaths and got up. He knocked briefly on the open door

"Aren't you heading home, sir?"

Chandler looked up. "In a while." He smiled. This was part of their Friday ritual too. 

"Can I have a word?" 

Chandler suddenly looked wary. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no, it’s just...” Emerson sat down, took a deep breath and started rolling out his prepared speech. “Last Friday, the night of the Coulson murder, I was working late while you and the Skip were out at the murder scene. I fell asleep at my desk, and I ended up overhearing your conversation with Skip when you got back.”

“You were eavesdropping?”

“No, I wasn’t listening on purpose, sir! I should have let you know I was there, but I didn't. I’m sorry about that, and if you’d like to reprimand me for it, you can, but that’s not the conversation I came in here to have, so could we do this first?” It was one of his prepared points, and even though he felt like he rushed through it a bit, it had the effect he was looking for. Chandler's mouth opened and closed in confusion, but he didn’t say anything.

“I’d like to take you out for a drink,” Emerson said.

“A drink?”

“Yes. A drink, then a date, and then, hopefully, you’d like to take me out for a date. Then, you know, so on and so forth,” Emerson replied, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. 

"You listened to Miles' and my conversation, all of it, and now you want to take me out for a drink?"

"Yes." Emerson tried not to squirm under the boss' inquiring stare. "I've read up on, on asexuality, and nothing I read is a deal breaker." 

"Really," Chandler commented drily.

“I’m comfortable with an asexual relationship. I mean that. Whether or not you believe it is up to you, I suppose, but please don’t assume that you know how I feel.” He cracked a smile. “I mean, I’m not having sex with you either way, so I might as well get to spend time with you, right?”

Chandler didn’t smile, but he did look pensive, which Emerson took to be a good sign. 

“You’re skipping over the part where you’re my subordinate and we could both lose our jobs.”

“Nobody has to know.”

Joe looked sceptical, and Emerson relented: “Well, obviously, we’d have to tell Skip, and Riley and Mansell. But none of them would ever tell on us!” 

“I’m sorry, Kent, I just don’t understand why something like this would be appealing to you.” 

Emerson sighed. Time for his last prepared tidbit. If this didn’t work, he would have improvise, which was just never a good idea. “Because I’m crazy about you, sir. Properly head-over-heels. And before you go accusing me of being young and flighty, I’ve felt this way since the first time you walked into the incident room after the first Ripper murder. It hasn’t gone away, it’s only gotten stronger. Please give me a chance to show you what I have to offer, sir.”

Chandler rubbed his temples, and Emerson felt his heart slowly drop. The boss looked a lot like someone trying to figure out how to let someone down easy. 

“I think...” Chandler trailed off, then he looked up and started over. “I think you should let me buy the drinks. And you might try calling me ‘Joe’ instead of ‘sir’.” He gave a small smile, and Emerson smiled back, trying hard to contain the whoop of joy that threatened to burst his lungs. 

"Okay."

"Okay."

 

The pub was crowded, and for a moment Emerson wondered if they should call the whole thing off. The ride over had been just long enough for him to have time to worry, and he felt awkward and uneasy. The boss on the other hand, actually looked relaxed and comfortable - which was strange, given that he so rarely did. He pointed to a free table and walked to the bar. Kent tried to make himself comfortable and come up with some possible topics of conversation, but ended up just stressing himself over all the ways this could go spectacularly wrong. When the boss came back, he must have noticed Emerson's distress, because his face took on a solemn and compassionate look.

"Kent... Emerson, it's alright if you're having second thoughts."

"I'm not," Emerson managed. "I'm just nervous." He drank deeply from his pint.

"Alright." Joe paused for a moment, before continuing in a lower voice. "There’s one more thing we need to discuss before this goes any further. In the office, we work. We're Kent and Chandler, and we don't let our relationship influence our work.”

Emerson nodded. “Of course.”

“That goes doubly if this doesn’t work out. We work well together, and we can’t allow any personal discord between us to change that.” Emerson nodded again, and Joe smiled. 

“Good," he said, and took a sip of his drink. "So, why don't you tell me about yourself?"


End file.
